Illinois May Require School Shooting-Incident Drills

When a police officer acting as a shooter in a safety drill begins trolling the hallways, students at public schools in Plainfield hear an announcement over the PA system and react: They follow their teacher into a closet or corner in their classroom, sit quietly in the dark — and refuse to open the locked door for anyone.

"We'll shake on the door loudly or pound on the glass, just to try to raise a level of emotion, to try to get people to understand," said Ed Boswell, who heads safety operations for District 202.

"We can never be over-prepared," he said.

In an era marked by tragic school shootings, dramatic drills like these have become routine at the 29,000-student school district in the far southwest suburb, where administrators say children are as familiar with lockdown intruder drills as their parents were with fire drills.